Curator, Witte de With, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Renske Janssen (born in Gemert, 1975) is based in Rotterdam as curator and writer. Since 2004 she is working as a curator at Witte de With, center for contemporary art, Rotterdam where she has a special interest in tensions and clashes in private and public space. She has curated several group exhibitions such as Tracer (2004) and Street: Behind the Cliché (2006) that dealt with related topics. With the concentration of solo exhibitions and publications she focuses on specific artistic positions dealing with the problematic status of the image and questions around representation in popular culture beginning with Mathias Poledna (2006), followed by the American artist Chloe Piene (scheduled for 2007 with publication). With an interest in the contemporary use of the personal and the emotive in moving imagery she's organising for 2007's International Film festival Rotterdam a selection of artists films under the title Depiction, Perversion, Repulsion, Obsession, Subversion that will focus on the critical use of cinematographic tools as sound and editing and - more general - with forms of manipulation. Among others, she published several texts and reviews in Dutch magazines Kunstbeeld and in the Rotterdam artist magazine Fucking Good Art and is a regular contributor of the Belgian music and cultural magazine Gonzo Circus.
She has a Masters title in Contemporary Art theory and Dutch Art policy from University of Utrecht. From 2000-2003 she collaborated on For Real (2000), Display (2001) and Life in a Glass House (2002) at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. At the Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam she organised several solo exhibitions among others Bantar Gebang van De Rijke/De Rooij and Mindset of Saskia Olde Wolbers. She organised in collaboration with the Universiteit van Amsterdam several lectures about contemporary artistic practice and theory and was a freelance curator for Lost & Found, evenings for lost images in Amsterdam. From 2002 to 2004 she was a faithful assistant of Amsterdam based artist Germaine Kruip.